


and it's my whole heart, weighed and measured inside

by orphan_account



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Developing Friendships, Drabble, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-03
Updated: 2018-02-03
Packaged: 2019-03-13 01:24:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13559706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Once again, they are wanted and on the run.This time, they’re forcibly split up.(Or: Yasha sees a true friend in Nott the Brave.)





	and it's my whole heart, weighed and measured inside

**Author's Note:**

> hi i'm jane and i haven't stopped crying over the fact that nott gave yasha flowers what's up
> 
> sorry for any typos
> 
> title source: [which witch (demo) - florence + the machine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dridksAWI0)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once again, they are wanted and on the run.

This time, they’re forcibly split up.

There’s no time to decide who they disappear into the woods with, but it goes like this: Fjord and Jester pull an unconscious Caleb further from the road where the bodies of about a third of a band of robbers lie, hearing the rest of the rabble coming over the hill in the dark. Molly and Beau, half-dead from poison-tipped arrows, dive headfirst into the underbrush, pulling each other through, tumbling out of sight just as the bandits begin to round the corner. Nott, already running, is scooped up by Yasha, who follows in the direction (she thinks) the others went.

It’s not like they planned for this. They would have stayed and fought, but, well—

Most of them are wounded and are in need of, at best, a night’s rest and a date with Jester’s healer’s kit. At worst, the purple Tiefling and the monk, along with Caleb, will need a proper doctor’s medical attention should they expect to be back on the road anytime soon. Even Yasha received a bad hit to the ribs, and Fjord only just managed to dodge a blow that might have left him without his sword arm.

Yasha isn’t sure if they were spotted, but she won’t take the chance to stop and find out. With Nott in her arms, she charges further into the trees. Over the pounding of her heart, she thinks she hears the goblin girl say something along the lines of “you’re not very stealthy, Yasha!” but there’s no room or time to reply.

Then—

Something pierces her shoulder. Cuts into flesh, digs in deep. It makes her stumble, and she trips, going headfirst into the dirt. Somewhere along the way, she drops Nott.

She curses under her breath. This wasn’t supposed to happen. They should never have been separated from the others in the first place, but—

“We got one of ‘em!” a robber calls from somewhere far off, and she can now hear the sound of the rest of his band making their way towards them. How many were sent after them, she can’t know, but she uses a nearby tree to heave herself to her feet. An arrow is stuck in her arm, bleeding and aching with every breath she takes, but she does her best to ignore it. Drawing her sword, she turns and faces the opposite direction just as a trio of bandits clear the shrubbery and halt at the edge of the small clearing they’re in.

“Nott,” Yasha says blindly into the dark, “are you—”

She glances around, feeling a twinge of fear behind that wall of rage she builds every time something like this happens—every time somebody makes her run.

Where is Nott?

(She remembers Caleb quietly telling all of them that, should anything happen to Nott—should any harm befall her—

Fjord had put his hand on Caleb’s arm, gentle as ever, and said, “we’ll look out for her.”

Each of them had been thinking the same thing.)

One of the robbers lets out a yell, and she blocks just in time as he brings his sword down in an obvious—but strong—arc towards her chest. She easily manages to shove him back, sheer willpower pushing her towards them. The three of them are ragged, scarred, and vicious looking; each of them are shorter than her by at least two handspans, but she can see they think they have an advantage on her because they there’s an arrow that nearly made it through her shoulder.

It makes them all fools.

Another bandit darts forward, gripping two curved, cruel-looking blades. He means to spin and deliver a flurry of blows, aimed at her sword arm, and she takes a cut on her right bicep below the arrow wound as she swings her weapon towards him. He only just manages to dance out of her reach, backing up behind the first one. Nimble and light on his feet—these types, she thinks, are always the most aggravating to fight.

The one who attacked her first lunges—

Out of the corner of her eye, she spots the third, wielding a bow, drawing back the arrow, ready to let it fly—

A familiar cry pierces the shadowy dark of the clearing. Yasha manages to sidestep the attack and look just in time to see Nott flying through the air, porcelain mask cracked and hanging around her neck, hitting the archer hard enough for him to lose his focus and drop his bow. He lets out a shriek as Nott’s short-sword glints, catching a sliver of moonlight as she plunges it into his throat.

The two bandits in front of her are wid-eyed, caught off guard. “Wha—” the nimble one starts, but Yasha doesn’t give him the chance to finish his thought. She charges, brings down her great-sword, cuts right through him in what feels like a blink of an eye. The first one turns, most likely the with intent to run, and Yasha skirts forward to block his path.

The robber’s eyes are wild. They dart from the body of his fallen compatriot to the archer, who is lying on the ground with a short-sword now embedded in his chest. “You’ll regret this,” he says as he begins to back away, “you and your lot—”

Nott materializes seemingly out of nowhere behind him, and bites him on the back of his left calf. Sinks her teeth in.

He screams.

Yasha strikes, and he falls, headless, to the ground.

There’s a moment of stillness, of a feeling that time doesn’t touch for a second; it comes right before Yasha breathes a sigh of relief, and it’s gone as soon as she remembers her wounds.

“That looks bad,” Nott says, creeping closer to Yasha.

Looking upon the young goblin girl, Yasha finds herself inexplicably softening.

(She remembers hearing stories every she went, when she was in the traveling carnival—about how goblins are selfish, and vicious, and only care for their own, cruel kind; she remembers the vehemence with which so many patrons sneered and spat and lunged at a goblin who was unlucky enough to be there with them.

She remembers seeing Nott for the first time, a face in shadow half-covered with what used to be a doll’s face, the goblin keeping her back to most so that they might not discover that she was not, in fact, a Halfling.)

“I’ll be all right,” she says, kneeling so she is eye level with Nott.

“No,” Nott shakes her head, “I mean, that looks _really_ bad.” Her hand flits towards her flask. “You need to get that looked at.” She brightens, suddenly, her eyes shining in the shadow of the woods. “I know! When we find the others, I’ll steal some potions for us!”

Yasha presses her lips together for a brief moment, wondering at how so small a creature’s fate could be intertwined with her own—along with Beau, and the Tieflings, and Fjord, and the human wizard.

“That sounds lovely,” she says, and, because they are alone—because Not _saved her life_ , something the goblin has become exceptional at doing for their friends despite what goblins’ reputations would have one believe—she outstretches her hand. “Come on.”

Nott takes it. She takes a swig of her flask, jittery again, and begins to put it back before she stops. After a moment’s hesitation, she asks, “you want some?” Quickly: “for the pain.”

“Thank you, Nott,” Yasha, deliberately turning her voice soft in quiet. She accepts the flask, swallows down a mouthful of liquor, and hands it back to her.

Nott, small and green, wrapped in a ragged cloak and bandages; Nott, with her doll mask hanging around her neck as she retrieves her bloodied short-sword from the body of the archer; Nott, a creature braver than most—

Yasha, in that moment, is glad she chose to join them on their journey. She was already close with Mollymauk, as friendly as she’s ever been with another, and she likes Beau— _really_ likes the monk, more than she ought to, most likely—but she is already warming up to the rest of them.

And, she thinks, she could die for them. And live for them. Caleb, Fjord, Jester, Beau, Molly. And Nott. Nott, who is on her way to becoming her dearest friend in this merry band of mismatched, happenstance-prone destinies.

They head north with the intent on finding the others.

Yasha thinks of the flowers pressed between the pages of her diary, the ones Nott gave her what feels like so long ago, and wonders at the twinge she feels in her chest. It can only be likened to the sight of the sun coming up after winter’s longest night, finally there to melt the snow and bring warmth back into the world.

After so many years of feeling alone (despite the company she found and kept in the traveling carnival, and others), she hears her heart in the dark, beating strong and sure under her ribs: _so this is what it’s like, to have a family_.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
